Obama Orders Expansion of Potential Targets in Syria

As Congress continues to debate whether to authorize military action, President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to expand their list of targets in Syria. The expansion will reportedly place additional emphasis on the "degrade" part of the potential mission's goal to "deter and degrade" Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ability to use chemical weapons.

According to officials cited by the New York Times, the order is in response to intelligence reports showing that Assad's military has been moving troops and equipment used to fired chemical weapons. The list of targets now reportedly includes more than the 50 or so initial targets established during joint planning sessions with French forces last month.

From the Times:

Mr. Obama’s instructions come as most members of Congress who are even willing to consider voting in favor of a military response to a chemical attack are insisting on strict limits on the duration and type of the strikes carried out by the United States, while a small number of Republicans are telling the White House that the current plans are not muscular enough to destabilize the Assad government.

Senior officials are aware of the competing imperatives they now confront — that to win even the fight on Capitol Hill, they will have to accept restrictions on the military response, and in order to make the strike meaningful they must expand its scope.

“They are being pulled in two different directions,” a senior foreign official involved in the discussions said Thursday. “The worst outcome would be to come out of this bruising battle with Congress and conduct a military action that made little difference.”

Meanwhile, in a clear attempt to sell the intervention to America's liberals, Secretary of State John Kerry gave an interview to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Thursday night.

The president is not talking about, uh, assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. What the president is trying to do and what we believe is important to America’s national security interests and to humanitarian interests and to the interests of Israel and Jordan and Lebanon and all of our friends in the region is that you hold Bashar Al-Assad responsible for use of chemical weapons and that you degrade his ability to use them again and deter him from using them again. That’s what’s really important here. That’s all that we’re talking about in this.

Kerry also answered Hayes's question about a recently surfaced video of Syrian rebels executing seven captured members of Assad's military, saying the men in the video would be "disadvantaged by an American response to the chemical weapons use because it, in fact, empowers the moderate opposition."

I find Secretary of State Botox's argument Orwellian to the point of self-parody. Radical islamists summarily execute captured pro-Assad soldiers in broad day light after reciting ominous, hyper-religious and creepy incantations and Kerry's response is "supporting these wackos via aerial bombing will weaken them by encouraging moderate forces to join the fight"?

Someone explain to me how that works. The bombing weakens Assad then Secular Joe shows up when the scales are tipped and says "Alright, Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Angry, you and the rest of the battle hardened leadership are out, me and my buddies from the London School of Economics are taking over. Thanks for your services."

To be fair, it's highly unlikely that anyone in Al Nusra/whoever has the political skills to actually take power and secure it. Also, the guys doing the executing weren't even radical Islamists. Those guys in the picture are the "moderates."

And though I find most of the posturing about "radical islam" from the Hannity, anti-war right to be little more than cynical partisanship, that NY Times video really did scare the living shit out of me. Broken clock and all.

Follow the pipelines. Its about moving natural gas to Europe. Specifically Saudi Arabian and Qatar gas. Those are the mysterious "Arab States" that will pay for the US actions as Kerry put it. Russian gas out, Arab gas in. We get paid.

The Syrian conflict is a corporate war between the Russian mega-gas company Gazprom (#1 supplier to Europe) and the up and coming Saudi/Qatar gas coalition.

thank you for communicating this idea in 5x as effective and concise form as I did. It amazes me how even now, Gawker institutionally takes the intel about a chemical attack (much like the WMD intel) in good faith.

I feel there's been a lot of marching with the warmongering drumbeat on much of the moderate left's part (and especially the onion, though their excuse is they got hacked). That anything else than the most popular, rather simplistic narrative of the situation seemed "crazy" for a couple days is such a clear illustration of how if full time, experienced, hard news newsroom journalists were pennies, you probably wouldn't have more than $20 or $30 in the US.

In northeastern Syria, the Kurds are warring with Arabs, because Assad pulled out of that region. The Kurds are calling upon regional allies. The Turks are fighting the Kurds. The Islamist wackos are fighting Kurds and Assad. Assad is fighting Islamists and other insurgents. Hezbollah is trying to sit it out, because they see the writing in the wall for Assad, but will end up fighting the Islamists if they are not already. Iran is fighting for Assad. Israel doesn't like Iran. Iran doesn't like Israel and supports Hezbollah and Assad. Assads people were oppressed minority Alawites with a history of being massacred before they took over and began massacring. The Chechens and al Queda have showed up. Our Conservatives and Liberals want to protect Israel from Iran and Arabs. We want to bomb somebody who used chemical weapons. Got this?

The only conclusion I can draw is that Syria is gods monkey house of the Middle East — and endless cycle of bloody racist sectarian tribal violence. Perhaps we should pass on this one. okay bye.

And China, Russia, and the US are fighting over a natural gas pipeline. Not to say the human rights tragedies aren't real. They are. They're just muddled in a haze of competing parties, and bad, deceptive, or "greater good" blurring of intel.

I won't pretend natural gas pipelines or economic levers aren't important. But you know, that's also in the mix as to why the US govt, over the last year, been gently encouraging coverage on continuing conflict in Syria, as opposed to, say, Congo-Kinshasha.

Regarding the consideration economic factors as a "conspiracy theory," rather than history-based realism about US foreign political involvement, belies a frankly ignorant view of 20th century politics. It also reveals a comfortable assumption that one is smarter or more informed than three-letter agencies, or that such agencies are generally honest with the public when deeply invested in regime change. Again, not so much.

Alright, I'm going to break it down as simply as I can. In the early 2000s, Saudi Arabia and Qatar tried to convince Assad to allow them to build a natural gas line from the gulf states through Syria to sell natural gas to the European markets. Assad already had a deal in place with Moscow to give the Russian gas company, Gazprom, exclusive traffic through Syria to the Mediterranean and Europe. Hence the close economic and military ties between Putin and Assad. Russian gas dominates the market and Assad gets a healthy cut.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, pissed because they cannot move their wares, have supported the rebel movement (some would say started) in order to destabilize and eventually overthrow Assad so they can get their gas lines built with the new government. It is worth Trillions of dollars to them to get their gas to Europe.

When Kerry told us that "Arab States" were willing to pay for the Syrian intervention, he was talking about the Gulf States, specifically Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We are the hired guns. Saudi Arabia and Qatar fit the bill for our missiles (and probably give us a healthy profit) and they get the trillion dollar pipeline. The US gets paid and continued unlimited military presence in their nations.

It's scary when Occam's Razor leads you a conspiracy theory. I actually like this one. It's actually more comforting to think we're getting paid for this somehow rather than just wasting bunch of money mindlessly again like Iraq. Unless we got paid for Iraq?

Fuck you, Mr. President. You're a bigger disappointment than my ex. Also more evil. I hereby UN-vote for you.

And I apologize to all my Green Party friends who called him a murderous drone-striker and urged me not to vote for him and I called you all "wacky vote-splitters." You were right and I was wrong. I apologize.

Seriously. I kind of feel like an idiot. I've been arguing with my uber-lefty friends about this for 5 years, and now all I can say is "omg sry". I mean, fucking hell what a bunch of shit.

What sucks is that on the social policy side, he's been doing some good stuff (lowering mandatory minimums, LGBT stuff, leaving the weed laws in WA/CO alone, etc) - but that means fuck all if we're mired in another pointless war. Also, does he not realize or care that a lot of the Syrian rebels are Al Qaeda?